People of all ages trim and clip nails on daily bases. Nail clippers became a necessity as people cannot get by especially during travel. When a person trims his nails, the nail clippings have a tendency to spring away from the nail clipper in any number of unpredictably different directions. However, few people want to put up with the hassle of and spend time for searching for stray nail clippings. For this reason there is a strongly perceived need for nail clippings receptacles for use with nail clippers. Many attempts to devise such receptacles have been made over the years but resulted in numerous failings.
The art of various types of nail clippers is replete as finger and toenail clippers having means for collecting nail clippings during the clipping process are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,855,698 to Crosby provided an enclosed nail clip and an enclosing case having a reservoir structure for the clipped nails. The clipping lever was enclosed but had an exposed lever-end accessible for applying finger pressure thereto to close the clipper blades. The casing structure provided a concavely-shaped aperture following the opposing blades providing access to finger ends carrying nails to be clipped. The enclosure was openable for emptying collected nail clippings.
Another prior art reference, namely U.S. Pat. No. 3,997,966 to Sertore provided a nail clipper which had upper and lower handles to facilitate holding the unit and maintaining it in the desired position. It had cutting jaws on three sides to allow nail clipping for different and more convenient angles, and a clipping-receiving receptacle with a removable lid for surrounding the unit and holding the nail clippings.
Still another prior art reference, such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,169,312 to Fink provided a nail guard for mounting on a nail clipper. The nail guard possessed sufficient flexibility so as to enable a slight outward flexing of the side panels which was sufficient to allow the positioning of the lower jaw member between the detents and the bottom panel. Means were provided for pivotally mounting the guard on the nail clipper for movement between a first position where the side panels were positioned on opposite sides of the space between the jaw members so as to enclose this space, and a second position wherein the guard was oriented below the lower jaw so as to open the space between the jaws, and providing a barrier for retaining the cut nails within the enclosed space.
Later on, another prior art reference, i.e. U.S. Pat. No. 4,602,430 to Allen disclosed a handle and clipping receptacle that provided a removable accessory for a nail clipper of the lever action type. A resilient body member defines a slot into which the clipper can be inserted and retained by a depression formed in the bottom of the slot. The clipper is retained also by flanges and cavities within the body member. Large inner cavities extend within the body member on both sides of the clipper to receive and retain clippings sheared by the clipper. Such clippings can be disposed by removing the clipper and inverting the body member. The major disadvantage of that design was location of cutting edges along with the edge of the resilient body thereby allowing most of the clipping to escape the resilient body.
Another U.S. Pat. No. 4,731,927 to Douglas B. Wilson, describes a nail clipper in which a flexible material disposed along the sides of the clipper is intended to prevent nail clippings from falling away from a nail clipper. However, the nail clippings which are kept from falling away from the nail clipper are unfortunately not ejected away from the clipper opening and into a storage receptacle. The nail clippings, accumulating at the clipper opening, therefore have the undesired effect of jamming the clipper's cutting means. This default results in mechanism failure. Furthermore, Wilson does not disclose any means for easy emptying of the nail clippings.
Still another U.S. Pat. No. 5,195,544 to Campagna teaches a hollow nail catcher case is provided herein for use with a nail clipper. The case is preferably constructed of a thin synthetic plastic material. It includes an upper roof, a lower floor and a pair of side walls, all such roof, floor and side walls being of truncated triangular shape and being joined together to provide a hollow truncated hollow pyramid for sliding over the nail clipper. The forward end of the case includes a pair of forwardly-extending, gently-inwardly-curved, flexible walls. These walls also are provided, at their forward ends with sharply inwardly angled termini, such ends also being shaped with vertically-extending, arcuately-shaped, terminal ends, and with upper and lower curved surfaces. These arms are of sufficient longitudinal length fully to enclose the sides of the nail clipper. This enables the case to be universally usable in many different kinds of nail clippers. The gripping arms extend just as far as the nail clipping jaw thereby allowing the nails being cut to escape the nail catcher case.
However, the aforementioned prior art nail clipping devices still need improvements and modifications. Therefore, an opportunity exists for an improved nail clipping device that will be easy to manufacture and use, will offer features and functions not realized by the prior art nail clipping devices, and will eliminate any disadvantages associated with the prior art nail clipping devices.